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Jul 18, 2015

Last week while scrolling through the sea of facebook updates, I found one that made me wish that I was a tad closer demographically to my good friend Jessica. She wanted to know if anyone would like to join her for an early morning walk on the beach. Of course, I sat there on my barstool in front of my own computer screen waving my hand in the air: "me!! me, I want (need!) to go for a walk on the beach! pick me!!!!" No walk on the beach for this desert girl but it did spark an idea: a virtual blog-hop walk!

because sometimes you just need to escape, to be outside surrounded by nothing more than the warm desert light of summer and towering cactus plants. Ironically, I find myself craving the outdoor scenery more so in the summer months here, likely due to needing to spend so much time indoors because of the heat. There is an art however to venturing outside in the desert during summer months though that makes the 100+ temps bearable - I've learned to move slowly through the desert and in doing so I'm rewarded with the time to take in and observe the smallest of details in the landscape around me. Taking a walk outdoors in the evening also means that there are far less people to share the surrounding areas with, you're often left with sprawling landscapes all to yourself, void of any other person but filled with wildlife that comes alive as the sun starts its slow journey towards the horizon. It may not be the ocean but the contrast between this harsh environment and the details in the cactus, the colors of the blooming summer flowers and vastness of the terrain is what makes Phoenix so beautiful during this time of year.

Jun 16, 2015

It's super hard to believe but an entire year has already gone by and my time as a designer for Gossamer Blue has come to an end. With my final kit, I decided to create a few things that went along with the kids' final month of school. So, a couple of cute teacher gifts were put together. I seriously love gift wrapping. The little layers of fun paper things mixed with random unexpected objects; painted feathers, sequins, those cute word bobby pins! These little gift wrap boxes actually inspired a couple of new ideas for the etsy shop as well!

Since the kids are on summer break, I've signed both of them up for a summer reading program through the local library. As an incentive for reading, I made them these little reading log books with Popsicle book marks. The reading logs are made with a PL 3x4 card and then filled with index cards cut down to size. It's such a fun way to encourage the littles to read more!

I also made these little wooden keychains. Summer just seems like the perfect reason to pull out all of the paints and make something cute. Like an ode to summer camp from childhood!

In the Main Kit there's lot's of cute embellishments and really large cardboard letters - spray painted gold they make really pretty addition to my art table!

and finally the Etsy part! I am reopening up my little shop tomorrow. Now that my obligations have slowed in time for summer, I'm hoping to have lots of extra time to devote to my own collections! This first update is called:

Summer Soiree

- it's a summery collection of both handmade and vintage, a little of everything with a summer time theme. I'll be adding more to my shop throughout the summer but this first update is so exciting, it feels as though it's been forever since I've really devoted any time to my artsy little shop. It's good to get back to what makes you happy!

Thanks for stopping in today! I look forward to being able to post a little more regularly as well. I've come to love summers and the extra time that comes along with the warm season!

May 22, 2015

It's hard to believe but this week is the kids' last week of school. We made it and I'm not sure who is more excited about the impending last day of school but it may just be this mommy! I imagine without the constant stack of homework and projects every night to help with, I will have more time to create and photograph - something that I miss doing throughout the year!

and the end of the school year means Graduations to celebrate and lots of teacher appreciation gifts to hand out - which leads to lots of creative gift wrapping since I'm a huge fan of gift cards. It takes a little imagination to make a gift card feel like a well thought out gift and it's achievable if you spend a little more time with the gift wrap process - it's all about the layers! So this month with the help of some Gossamer Blue kits I wanted to focus on some creative ways to wrap up those tiny presents!

There is still one my project to share with Gossamer this month, a fun little travel journal that you can quickly create for your summer road trips! These were made with the May main kit! I plan on making a few extra of these, I think they'll come in handy to take along with us on our traveling adventures this summer.

Have a wonderful weekend friends! The family has plans to visit a ranch this weekend (and I'm super excited to be bringing along my camera, I've been wanting to break in a new camera lens - just needed the right setting!) The rest of the weekend will be spent preparing my Etsy shop again - so looking forward to summer and all the of the possibilities!

May 15, 2015

If I had to choose between all of the kits over at Gossamer Blue I would pick the Bits & Pieces kit - every time! I always find that I look forward to sorting through that kit the most each month and the May kit Bits & Pieces kit is one of my all time favs!

Welcome to the GB May Blog Hop friends! I knew I wanted to save this kit to use for a project after Mother's Day. We took the kids down to Schnepf Farms for their annual Peach Festival on Mother's Day and spent the afternoon picking peaches, riding carnival rides and eating a bit too much kettle corn. It was a wonderful sunny afternoon here in the desert - which is where I decided to draw the creative inspiration for this tiny mini album named appropriately: Desert Peach!

The first page in this album is simply a little stack of vintage papers all stacked and stapled to a cardstock page. It's like having a notebook to fill out, a narrative about a day well spent.

Since this book is so incredibly tiny, each page is only 3x3 inches, I knew I needed to keep the individual pages simple and as flat as possible. My love of embellishing would have to take a back seat to the simple approach this time around.

I cheated a little and used a few older photos of my Mom's garden. California peaches are slightly prettier than the desert grown ones - in my opinion of course. Even Chase was convinced that we were picking mango's instead of peaches. :)

Even though it was warm May Sunday it never really seemed to phase the kids much. It was like an Easter Egg hunt looking for peaches that were ripe enough to pick and we came home with a bag full of sweet smelling fruit!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Hope you enjoyed my mini album post and don't forget to check out these girls' blogs for more super cute Gossamer Blue projects!